Aquariums and terrariums have long been used by hobbyists and amateur naturalists to provide environments suitable for small fish, animals, and other biological specimens. The popularity of aquariums and terrariums has recently spread to interior designers, whose interest in the units stem from their aesthetic appeal.
In the prior art, aquariums and terrariums have been made of sheet glass, bonded together to form watertight rectangular enclosures. Recent advances in the field have been principally directed to improvements in ancillary accessories, such as lighting units and pumping/filtration/aeration equipment, while the design of the basic unit has been left substantially unchanged.
In contrast, many advances have been made in large scale displays of aquatic and terrestrial life--the sort found in zoos and municipal aquariums. These displays have evolved from barren, large rectangular enclosures to aesthically appealing designs. Some of these large scale displays even include provisions for surrounding the viewer with the environment being displayed. Exemplary are new municipal aquariums in which certain displays have glassed-in tunnels traversing the bottom of the tank from which viewers can observe the surrounding marine life. Such advances, however, are obviously not readily applicable to the terrariums and aquariums used by hobbyists and interior designers.
It is an object of the present invention to provide improved aquariums/terrariums of the sort used by hobbyists and interior designers.
It is a more particular object of the present invention to provide an aesthetically pleasing aquatic/terrestrial display unit that provides a variety of novel optical effects, including the illusion whereby aquatic and terrestrial environments are superimposed, sometimes with their geometrical relationships seemingly altered by attendant lensing effects.